Comment by tbrownaw
1 day ago
> doing anything except addressing the grievances that lead to that.
Well yeah, it's not exactly easy to get everyone to understand that insurance isn't magic and money out has to match money in.
1 day ago
> doing anything except addressing the grievances that lead to that.
Well yeah, it's not exactly easy to get everyone to understand that insurance isn't magic and money out has to match money in.
According to this source, united healthcare profits were $14B in 2024. https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/unitedhealth-unh-2024-re...
So yeah, money out not matching money in is exactly the problem.
So a bit under 5% per the rest of the numbers in that link.
I can't find the detailed breakdown for 2025, but in 2024, they took in $308bn in premiums and paid out $264bn in medical costs. So even ignoring all of the downstream and systemic problems caused by insurance existing as a for-profit entity, they're taking 14% off the top just to exist as a middle-man.
https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/content/dam/UHG/PDF/invest...
3 replies →
About half of those profits were from the Optum side of the business, not from insurance.
If you’ve had UHC you’d know very well that Optum is intimately tied to their insurance business. UHC just “administers the plan” while Optum controls plan decisions. So when there’s a problem, which there always is with every claim more complicated than a PCP visit, you get bounced between both companies for hours until you find someone willing to take responsibility for answering questions.
Money out had better not match money in or the insurance company will be in a lot of trouble.
Imagine if we removed the need for insurance to turn a profit.
Imagine if we removed the need for life to turn a caloric profit.